For some time, we have been carting around a few suitcases of old family letters between various family homes. They are between my grandmother and grandfather and cover their courting (across the Atlantic – he in UK, she in US), their marriage (in UK) and the second world war (grandad in the navy).
My mum gave them to a researcher from The Victoria and Albert Museum recently. She recently had an update:
Dear Mrs Mitchell
As it is some months since I was last in touch, I thought that you might appreciate a progress report. Your parents’ correspondence has been sorted chronologically, starting with the very first letters in July 1930 and ending with a scattering of letters from the late 1940s. The collection fills ten archive boxes!
Your mother was a particularly devoted correspondent, writing dutifully each day and spending several hours on her self appointed task. Your father tried very hard but could not quite match her either in the frequency of his letters or in their length!
I have particularly enjoyed reading about Boston, which evokes for me so many happy memories of my family holiday last August, and have also been fascinated by the references to the financial crises of the early 1930s.
The collapse of two of the banks with which your grandfather Page was associated is of course echoed by the recent demise of various banks and building societies in 2009…
Well I never.
How lovely.
And how sad that nobody’s grandchildren will have copies of the emails and texts their grandparents sent each other when they were courting, 80 years hence.